Monday, May 4, 2009

Brown Lobster Tank - Our First Album (1994, Boring)

Southern Cali’s Brown Lobster Tank (their moniker later truncated to “The Tank” in response to a potential lawsuit) were to Big Drill Car what Badfinger was to The Beatles – a protégé band, albeit the stakes and expectations were considerably more modest for BLT than Pete Ham and Co. Furthermore, this release was even recorded and mixed by Big Drill head-hanco Mark Arnold. Like their pop-punkin’ forbearers, the quartet had their antecedents in the hook-addled skate-core rock originally formulated by the Descendants. And that's a good thing. As the title of this cassette-only release denotes, this is Brown Lobster Tank’s debut salvo, however it functions more as glorified demos for their second album, Tooth Smoke, on Dr. Strange Records, which reprised the bulk of this tape's ten cuts in rerecorded incarnations. Arguably, the most notable selection on Our First Album is a leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination tribute to "film" titan Ron Jeremy, supposedly inspired by a dream (dare I presume, um, a soggy one)? Incidentally, Jeremy provided a voice-over to the new and improved Tooth Smoke version of the song that bears his namesake. Now that’s class. The remainder of this tape offers significantly more relatable, post-adolescent themes, and in general is a lovingly raw, start-to-finish corker. I’m also appending an eleventh song, “Fluffy,” a priceless paean to the trials and tribulations of alopecia. This track appeared on the 1996, Pogo, Strut, Slam, Swivel + Mosh comp

The post-Tooth Smoke Tank released their next album There is No “I” in Band in 1999, and the belated follow-up, Remodel in ’07. 01. Bah02. Fubb03. Ron Jeremy04. Buzzer05. Homebrew06. Sunshine07. Bebo08. Beautiful Loser09. Smoking Is Cool10. C.H.I.X.plus: Fluffy

wow. you saved me from ripping this tape and the misfit heartbeat compilation. thanks!

i forget the lineage of this band, but i believe they joined forces with members of welt to begin as the tank. there was also a band called smartbomb who shared members with some of these bands. i think they had a couple albums that i passed up in the cheap bins.